The state's 'blue wave' was real, but seems to have missed cities

ALBANY — The “blue wave” that Democrats have touted since their victories in last Tuesday’s elections accounted for a nearly 7-point uptick in the party’s performance throughout most of the state.

But that trend wasn’t universal. Early evidence and a review of unofficial election results suggests that it largely passed over the state’s cities.

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POLITICO reviewed the results of every county-level executive branch race held upstate or in New York City’s suburbs. A total of 22 such contests had two major party candidates this year and, for the sake of comparison, in either 2013 or 2009. In 15 of these 22 races, the Democrat’s share of the vote this November was greater than in either of the prior two elections.

In these contests, Democrats received a total of 1.22 million votes, or 50.3 percent of the total that went to a major party candidate. In the prior years in which these races were contested, Democrats drew 1.04 million, or 43.8 percent.

As has been widely noted, Democrats performed dramatically better in the New York City suburbs that contain most of the competitive state Senate districts. On Long Island and in the three counties serviced by the Metro-North east of the Hudson, they increased their vote total in all seven contested countywide races. They flipped the county executive posts in Nassau and Westchester, the comptroller’s office in Nassau and seemingly Dutchess, and received 51 percent of the vote in the Putnam sheriff’s race after drawing 36 percent the last time they ran a candidate.

Democratic gains were also visible farther north, including in the counties that make up the competitive congressional seat currently held by Republican John J. Faso. In Columbia County, Democrats increased their showing in the sheriff’s race from 35 percent in 2009 to 43 percent this year, and in Rensselaer, the Democratic county executive candidate received almost 49 percent after the party didn’t run a candidate in the past three elections.

There was only a smattering of contested countywide seats in parts of upstate west of the Hudson, but Democrats increased their totals in a majority of them. From 2013 to 2017, their share of the vote increased from 56 percent to 71 percent in the Albany clerk’s contest, 38 percent to 49 percent in the Erie sheriff’s race, and 21 percent to 37 percent in the battle to be Cattaraugus’ next coroner.

Where didn’t Democrats do well?

The only suburban counties where there was no evidence of a wave were Orange and Rockland, where Democrats’ share of the vote decreased relative to 2013 in three of four countywide races. The Journal News attributed the returns in Rockland to local concerns involving overdevelopment driven by a population boom in Ramapo.

The most underwhelming results, however, came in cities. There were contested mayoral races in three of the state’s five largest cities, and in each of them, the Democrat received fewer votes than four years ago.

In Syracuse, the Democratic candidate received 38 percent of the vote in a city that gave Hillary Clinton 80 percent, losing to the son of a former Republican congressman who ran as a third-party candidate.

In New York City, Democrat Bill de Blasio handily won a second term, but there wasn’t much to suggest that voters were too enthused about the idea. The New York City Board of Elections lists his vote total as 726,361 with 98.4 percent of districts reporting, which could wind up resulting in the second-smallest total garnered by a victorious Democrat in the past century. De Blasio’s share of the two-way vote decreased from 75.1 percent in 2013 to 70.5 percent this year, a drop for a Democrat that was surpassed only in the Chautauqua executive’s race among the contested county-level contests outside of the city.

Other candidates didn’t fare much better: In three of the five borough president elections, the Democrat received less support than in the last contested race.

The results that seem to provide the best microcosm of the state as a whole came in Monroe County.

Incumbent Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, a Democrat, increased her share of the vote. She won 60 percent in a five-way race last week, compared with 55 percent in a three-way contest in 2013. But in both of these races, a candidate who lost the Democratic primary to Warren appeared on the general election ballot on the Working Families and Independence lines, and the share for that second Democrat decreased from 39 percent to 14 percent.

All told, the number of votes that went to registered Democrats who ran in the general election in Rochester decreased from 32,209 to 21,891, the smallest total in a contested race in at least a quarter-century. The number of votes cast for Warren decreased from 18,794 to 17,751, though it’s likely this year’s total will tick up a little bit once more ballots are counted. While it was certainly a good showing for the candidate who appeared on the Democratic line, there’s no evidence that the Donald Trump presidency inspired Democrats in the city to show up to the polls in greater numbers than they have in the past.

In the suburbs, meanwhile, Democrats surged.

In Henrietta, a Democrat was elected supervisor after receiving 6,072 votes, or 59 percent of the total. That's up from 4,225 and 46 percent in 2015 and 1,345 and 22 percent in 2009.

Democrats lost Webster, but their showing (5,672 votes, or 48 percent) was drastically improved over 2009 (2,724 votes, or 33 percent). They lost Greece, but saw an increase in support — from 7,859 to 9,890 votes and 41 to 45 percent relative to 2013 — and had a huge surge in Irondequoit, which they won with 55 percent in 2013 and 77 percent last week.

Meanwhile, a Democrat won the Monroe County sheriff’s race in a landslide, receiving 57 percent of the vote. When the Democrats last ran a candidate for that office in 2009, they received 31 percent.

It won’t be possible to make definitive declarations about what happened in Monroe until detailed voter statistics are released in the coming months. But based on the results in the county’s various municipalities, it certainly seems plausible that the results were driven by an increase in the number of suburban voters who cast their ballots for a Democrat rather than a surge in turnout among the solidly blue city voters.

What does all this mean going forward?

These results from suburbs in nearly every corner of the state strengthen Democratic hopes that moderate voters will be less inclined to back Republicans as long as Trump is the face of the party. The presidency wasn’t a major factor in many of the races — and in the Monroe sheriff’s contest, the Democrat was actually a Trump supporter — but the fact that the trend existed in almost every suburban contest and in other states certainly leaves open the possibility that the Republican Party’s image has been damaged in a blue state.

It’s always difficult to presuppose that trends in an off-year election can be applied to one in which a governor’s race is on the top of the ballot, as will be the case next year, particularly in state Senate contests in which Republicans have significant incumbency and fundraising advantages. But in the closely divided Senate, there are seven GOP seats in New York City’s suburbs for which Democrats have mounted serious campaigns in recent years. Last week’s results should certainly give the party some optimism that they might break from the trends that usually manifest in gubernatorial years and stand a chance of picking up a few seats.

But at the same time, the lackluster showings in several key cities suggest that Democrats might not expect as much of a bump there as they have in past good years.

The best Democratic performances in the state Senate in the past half-century have come in elections in which Barack Obama led the ticket and inspired a sharp spike in turnout in some solidly blue portions of the state. The party is hoping that anti-Trump sentiments will generate a similar degree of liberal enthusiasm among Democrats in 2018, though there was no evidence of that in this year’s elections.

If Democrats are hoping to win control of the Senate next year without having to rely on an alliance with the party’s breakaway members, they'll probably need to pick up at least one seat that wasn't seriously contested last year, and perhaps more than one. Likely culprits include a few that contain chunks of places like Rochester and Buffalo as well as large swaths of surrounding suburbs, but even a better-than-normal showing in the suburbs might not be enough to offset a mediocre turnout in the liberal portions of the districts.

Note: All of the above totals reference unofficial results and are subject to change. Unless otherwise noted, the percentages are based solely on the votes that went to major party candidates. Three small counties that posted incomplete or no election results were excluded from the above analysis.